


Shattered

by redheadthunderhead



Series: We're in This Til the End [2]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: 50/50 Angst and Fluff, Angst, F/M, Flashbacks, Fluff, Normandy crash site, Shepard is stubborn and stressed and needs a nap, i hate emotions, the angst isn't relationship related
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-12
Updated: 2016-04-12
Packaged: 2018-06-01 19:01:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6532411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redheadthunderhead/pseuds/redheadthunderhead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With the Collector base destroyed, the Normandy crew has some time to relax. Until the message comes in that the original Normandy has been located and Shepard has to face her nightmare again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shattered

**Author's Note:**

> Posting this from my phone and I wrote this over a lot of days because I was having too many feelings. Post-Collector base explosion and pre-Arrival with a slightly more developed Garrus/Shepard romance. 
> 
> The crew at the time of the crash was only humans and up until now Shepard avoided the subject.
> 
> Shepard has to deal with a lot of emotions. If that isn't your thing you might want to head out.
> 
> \--Written with my Renegade/Spacer/Sole Survivor/Vanguard, Natalie Shepard in mind.

“Commander, you have a message marked urgent from Alliance Command.”

Shepard groaned loudly in protest as the voice came over her cabin’s intercom, perfectly content to just lay in bed all day. She had untangled herself from Garrus sometime while she slept, but was still close enough to feel his naturally elevated body temperature radiating off of him. She would have been perfectly happy to curl back up next to him had she not been so comfortable where she was, laying on her stomach with her face shoved into a pillow. The Collectors were gone, and though the Reaper threat was there, there was little they could do about it at the moment. They just saved the galaxy again, and that was plenty good enough to give the crew a break, so 

“You going to go check that?” Garrus asked, and Shepard had to smile at his voice. 

“I probably should,” she responded several moments later, her own voice heavy with sleep. She still did not move for a solid five minutes, letting her body start to wake up on its own. When she finally dragged herself out of bed, the action came with plenty of various mumbled complaints that neither of them could really make out. "Typical, you save the world and suddenly everyone is grateful," she said as she glanced over the messages staring her in the face. When her eyes fell on the message from Hackett, she felt like she had just been punched in the gut.

Garrus seemed to pick up on this, likely picking up on her increased heart rate with his visor since he was up and watching her now. "Shepard?"

"Garrus....they found her."

He did not ask questions. There was no need to. He could tell from Shepard's reaction what she meant.

There was a slight shakiness to Shepard's voice as she started reading. "Our scans of the Amada system have turned up something we thought you should see: the final location of the wreckage of the SSV Normandy. We thought this news might be important to you--no shit--but we also have an ulterior motive. The Alliance would like to honor the Normandy with a monument, to be built on the site of the ship's final resting place. We'd like to invite you to place the monument and be the first to walk on the site." Garrus had crossed the room and was now reading over her shoulder, but she continued reading. "There are still twenty crew members unaccounted for from the attack on the Normandy. If you find any signs of these lost crewmen, we ask that you report to the Alliance so that those heroes' families might find some closure."

Part of her wanted to refuse. Visiting her temporary grave was not something that Shepard ever considered doing. She still woke up from nightmares, shaking and holding back tears and wishes that they would have just left her. These were her people, though. They died under her command. This was her ship, and she still remembered the day that Anderson handed her over and knowing it was the right but still hiding that anxious feeling deep inside that still plagued her. She had to go.

She was quiet for just a bit too long, lost in thought, and jumped when she felt a hand on her shoulder. “Shepard…”

“Shit,” was all she could say. “I shouldn’t have to think this hard about going.” She leaned back into Garrus and sighed, moving her hands to rest over his when his arms wrapped around her waist. “Maybe Hackett’s right. Maybe I’ll get some closure. Or maybe it’ll just be another punch in the face reminding me of everything.”

“Honestly, it will probably be both.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. Well, I’m assuming the Alliance is supplying the monument. We can just stay on the Citadel until then. It’ll give me time to talk to Joker and Tali.”

“Do you need me to handle one?”

“No, I think I should be the one to do it.” She pulled herself away reluctantly, but instead of making any move suggesting that she was going to go anywhere, she made her way back to the bed and unceremoniously threw herself on it, bouncing slightly on impact. “I need a nap first. Go...calibrate or whatever.”

“I don’t think you should be alone right now.”

“Probably not, but I want to be,” she stated, curling up on her side. “I’ll be down soon. Go.”

\--- 

Shepard was noticeably upset for the following days. The crew slowly became aware until even the engineers down on the lower decks were worried. Shepard was known for being very close to her crew. They were more like family to her, and she spent any downtime she had spending time with them. She had not even gone any lower than Deck Two since the night before she received the message. That was perhaps the most alarming change since the Crew Deck was where she spent most of her downtime on the ship.

The Alliance delivered the monument two days after Shepard received the message. Few words were said during the exchange. Shepard promised to do everything she could to find the lost crew, and the Alliance promised to get the Normandy back to Alliance standard, but Shepard knew that she was being watched closely. All ties with Cerberus were cut, and EDI was constantly working to block out any contact from them, but for now the Normandy was on her own. The Alliance could not afford to be working with a Cerberus vessel, no matter the circumstance.

The Normandy departed from the Citadel hours afterwards, and Shepard finally let the rest of crew in on what was happening. While it did nothing to lighten the mood, it made things less tense for everybody now that they knew what was bothering their Commander. Shepard was forced into a good long talk with Chakwas that she would never admit she was immensely grateful for, and that had nothing to do with the generous amount of alcohol involved. 

The initial shock of being told her lost ship had been found finally left her and Shepard was finally back to herself, or as close as possible, the day they entered Alchera’s orbit. She knew that it would not last long, and the moment she hit the landing zone it would all come back to her again. She could not seem to sit still as she waited in the shuttle bay, double and triple checking her suits pressure seals, waiting almost impatiently for her body to tell her that it was time to go. She did not have to wait for the Normandy to get close to the landing zone now that they had shuttles, but it was still an old habit from using the Mako.

She became aware of how alone she felt. Crew members, not from the original Normandy and definitely not her friends, were loaded in the shuttle to help place the monument. It felt wrong. These were just people from Cerberus, not people who cared about the significance of finding the original Normandy. She frowned, grumbling something under her breath as she resisted the urge to just forget about it all.

And then the damn elevator opened.

“Shepard?”

“Garrus, I...I really need to do this alone, alright?” Shepard said without completely looking at him. “Trust me, it would be so much easier on me if I brought you and Tali, but I can’t ask either of you to do that.” 

“We want to go,” came the familiar voice of the mentioned quarian, entering the room behind Garrus. “You don’t need to be alone down there. The Normandy was -- is -- our home too, we deserve to say goodbye with you.”

Shepard looked between the two, unable to argue any further. “You’re right. Damn it. Alright, suit up and let's get this over with."

"What about Cerberus?" Tali asked as Garrus left. Shepard looked back to the shuttle and the small group of Cerberus crew sitting inside. 

"Just to place the monument. That thing is heavy." Shepard pulled off her helmet, knowing they would be waiting for a while, and took a few deep breaths. 

"You weren't even this nervous before the Omega-4 relay, are you sure you're okay?" 

"Yeah, Tali. I'm fine. It's just weird knowing that I'm about to be on the planet I died on. I have all these images running through my head wondering what's left of the Normandy. God, I'm so glad we had such a small crew on board. Most of them got out. We just lost a lot of the lower decks. Adams made it out of engineering, or so I'm told, but I don't know. You, Wrex, Garrus, I could have lost all of you if you were still on board during the attack."

"I can't believe anyone survived. We barely made it when we fought the ship before the base."

"That was the same one that destroyed the first Normandy. Did anyone tell you? It was so satisfying to watch that piece of shit explode." 

“Don’t forget the one who calibrated those new guns,” Garrus said as he returned, earning a groan from Tali and one of Shepard’s famous stares. “Shutting up now. You ready, Shepard?”

“No, not really,” she said, turning her helmet over in her hands. “Let’s go.”

Shepard’s nerves hit her again mere seconds after the shuttle was clear of the Normandy. She could not sit still, even as she leaned up against Garrus. “Nothing I say could prepare you for what you’re going to see. The Collectors ripped her to shreds. I don’t even know how much is left, with the barriers down it could have burnt up in the atmosphere too. I just know that before I lost consciousness, I was surrounded by pieces of the ship and everything was still exploding.”

“Joker said you got him to the escape pod, what kept you from getting in there with him?” Tali asked slowly, unsure of whether or not it was a touchy subject.”

“I hesitated. Looked back one last time,” she answered bitterly, deep inside she was still angry with herself for making such a small mistake. “An explosion knocked me back. Probably a pocket of oxygen meeting fire at just the right time. I hit my head on something, that would explain the suffocating assuming my seals or air lines were damaged. Jacob said I was nothing but meat and tubes when they found me."

"Shepard, you don't have to--"

"No, it's okay. No better therapist than your friends, right? Chakwas was nice to talk to but it felt wrong to talk about it when she was there too. She’s been through as much as all of us, more if you consider the fact she was taken by Collectors.” 

“Shepard, I’m pretty sure you more than qualify for the right to say that you’ve gone through hell and back and back again,” Garrus said, taking a hold of her hand when she started picking at her armor. Shepard sighed and tried to better lace her fingers between his. That would take some figuring out. 

“Nobody else could have done it the way you did,” Tali agreed. Shepard frowned, hidden by her helmet.

“Don’t...I hate when people say that I’m the only one who could do it. Bullshit. I’m just a soldier like anyone else.”

“In case you hadn’t noticed, you managed to stop a rogue Spectre and his geth army and a Reaper, save the Council, die, get brought back to life-” Garrus knew she hated the term ‘rebuilt,’ “-track down the Collectors, lead us all into a suicide mission that we all walked out of, and here you are claiming you’re “just a soldier”. Shepard, you are so much more than that. You’re a damn hero.”

“There are too many lives depending on me, Garrus. The whole fucking galaxy looks up to me. I-” she was cut off by the shuttle landing and tensed up a bit. Wrapping her fingers tighter around Garrus’s hand. “Fuck.” 

“Come on, Shepard, let’s get this over with then we can get back up to the ship and take advantage of whatever down time we’ll have.”

“Back to the Citadel? Get drunk off our asses and forget our problems?” Shepard suggested, pushing back her nerves once more. Garrus stood and pulled her up. 

“Whatever the Commander orders.” 

“Are you alright, Shepard?” 

Shepard only nodded, taking a deep breath to remind herself the she was connected to her suit’s oxygen, then opened the shuttle door. Blocking her immediate vision was a rocky mound, and as she followed it up she saw the familiar shape of everyone’s favorite tank.

“The fucking Mako is down here,” Shepard said in disbelief, a hint of amusement in her voice masking the slight crack toward the end of her statement.

Joker’s voice answered over the radio.

“Of course it is, we’ve all seen you drive.”

“Shut up, Joker.”

“Considering how many times you flipped it I don’t see why you’re so surprised.”

“I’d say this is a good place to stick the monument. To represent how strong we are, or  
something,” Shepard said. “Tell the crew in the shuttle to put it there.” 

Her eyes finally tore away from the Mako, and the next sight she laid her gaze on knocked the breath out of her. The old CIC scattered across Alchera’s frozen surface. She was standing at the galaxy map moments before the attack. Her legs refused to work and she could just stand there and stare. 

Memories hit her like a wave, crashing down and chilling her to the bone.

She saw the burning remains of the Normandy floating around her in a sea of still darkness and distant stars. She heard the sound of her breathing amplified over her suit’s radio that she hoped in the back of her mind was no longer transmitting to anyone. The final escape pod, her last wasted chance, disappearing into the distance until the darkness swallowed it. It became harder to breathe and for a moment she only assumed it was fear until both her lungs and suit computers were screaming at her that something was wrong. She was dying the slow, agonizing death she always feared, and her only regret was that she did not say goodbye.

“Shepard!” 

She took a deep, gasping breath, and a scream almost ripped from her throat as she felt a weight on her shoulder. She fell back into reality, returned from her nightmare only to be presented with a new one. Still frozen in place but finally fully aware, her gaze once again landing on near-unrecognizable damage laid out in front of her. Her voice was trapped in her throat and it was still difficult to breathe as she gasped for air to calm her burning lungs.

“Slow down, Shepard, you’ll use up all your air.”

Before now, she never would have considered a turian’s voice to be soothing, but Garrus changed a lot of her initial thoughts about the race. Even through the slightly staticky suit radios she still heard him and tried her best to listen, shaking her head to wake herself up, and clearing her throat.

“Okay,” she breathed. “I’m okay.” 

“Hell no, you aren’t okay. We lost you for a while. Your body was here, but you were definitely gone.” 

“Shepard, please,” Tali insisted. “This can’t be good for you.”

“This isn’t about myself anymore, this is about finding some sign of my missing crew. Go back to the ship if you have a problem with it.” Shepard’s voice fell into that half-hearted bitter tone that often accompanied her insincere threats or promises about her state of mind. Tali may have not picked up on it right away, but Garrus did, and that meant he could keep pushing.

“Tali’s right Shepard.” He stepped forward and took hold of one of her arms to prevent her from walking away, but she just pulled herself free and kept moving. “You’ve seen too much in your life. Facing it again will only make it worse. You know how you get when people mention Akuze--”

“Stop,” Shepard demanded, swiftly turning on her heel and finally facing Garrus. “Do not even think of bringing up Akuze again. I am so fucking tired of people mentioning Akuze like I’m some fucking hero. I am not a hero for surviving while my entire unit died!” 

The tension around them grew and Tali had completely left the scene. Shepard felt her blood rushing angrily through her veins and she hated herself for shaking so much. 

“That’s exactly what I mean, Shepard,” Garrus said after a moment. Shepard turned her back on him but remained where she was. “You’ve been through more in a few years than anyone else would in a lifetime. This has been tearing you up since you got the message, we all see that.”

“I’m not leaving, Garrus,” Shepard stated firmly. “I’m here on a mission, I don’t back out of missions.”

“At least tell me you understand.”

“I do, Garrus. I do understand that everyone is worried about me and everyone looks up to me and that I’m pushing myself too hard, but if I don’t do it then who will? Now, I’m going to do what I came here to do.” 

“Shepard.” It was Tali’s voice this time and she turned toward the source. The quarian held something in her hands and it only took a moment for Shepard to realize they were dog tags. She took them and let out a breath she did not know she was holding.

“One down, nineteen to go,” she sighed, holding the chain as if it would shatter in her hands. “Thank you, Tali.”

“Let me find the rest,” she insisted. “You should go back to the Normandy.”

Truth be told, Shepard felt exhausted. As much as she wanted to protest, the reality check she was just faced with finally woke her up. Arguing was pointless at this point. They all knew that Garrus was right. She wanted this behind her more than anything.

“Damn it, I’m sorry,” Shepard apologized, voice quieter than it had been since they arrived. “I’m being a real pain in the ass, aren’t I? Alright, Tali, go ahead. I just want to look around a little first. I can’t leave without saying goodbye.”

“Fair enough,” Tali agreed. 

“Why don’t you help, Garrus? I’ll be okay.”

Now that they were finally starting to get through to her and Shepard seemed to become more aware of her limits, Garrus decided it best not to argue. The turian nodded, and Shepard’s sad smile was hidden behind her helmet. 

“Thank you,” she said before heading for the heart of the crash site after a brief moment of hesitation. 

The silence over the radios was not something to worry about. There was really nothing to say as the three of them scattered and searched through the wreckage. What worried Garrus was the lack of a reply from Shepard when he asked where she was and if she was doing okay. He tried to wait at first but eventually gave in, scanning the wreckage for Shepard after dropping another miraculously intact crate of eezo off at the shuttle. Her back was turned to him but he could tell she was looking down at something she was holding.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” she finally said. “They said my helmet was what kept my brain in one piece.”

“Maybe they took it off when your body was recovered,” Garrus suggested. “Used something else to--”

“Maybe,” Shepard said. She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Tali, how are you doing?”

“I just found the last one.”

“Good. You ready to go?”

“Please.” 

“Alright, let’s get out of here.”

\---

Shepard was out of the shuttle and gone without a trace in record time when they returned to the Normandy. If the armory had been in the logical place in the shuttle bay she would have at least made the effort to take off her armor, but unfortunately Cerberus seemed to be so focused on making their Normandy better than the original that they managed to overlook the most convenient feature. She did have to praise them for giving her a storage locker in her cabin so she could better avoid dealing with Jacob. She still could not trust any of the Cerberus crew members even if they had just followed her into a suicide mission and claimed to have cut ties the moment she did. She was beginning to at least tolerate them, but she was not necessarily sorry to hear that some of them needed to leave soon to take care of their own business. The commander side of her still worried about what would happen to them once they were gone, they may be Cerberus but they still followed her orders and therefore she was responsible for them while they were on her ship. 

It took a moment for her to realize that the elevator stopped moving when it hit her cabin. She shook off the daze she was in and began the task of removing her armor, admittedly finding it difficult without an extra set of hands since hers were shaking so much still. She would worry about cleaning it later, a decision she would likely regret because whether it be because of pride or pure necessity you always cleaned your armor after a mission unless you came through the airlock and decontamination unit. Right now she was more worried about taking a shower herself. She still felt cold and sitting under a stream of hot water seemed like the easiest course of action.

There was a box that she did not remember bringing in sitting on her desk when she returned. She did not recognize it but she assumed it contained the dog tags to be delivered to the Alliance. Her door had been locked and it still was, so she could not help but wonder who had gotten in.

“Garrus, you up here?” Shepard asked the empty room. There was no reply and she sighed before her eyes were drawn to the blinking light on her terminal. She braced herself, silently hoping there was nothing from the Alliance yet. It was just a message from Garrus:

“Call me up when you’re ready to talk.”

She was definitely not ready to talk, but she was going to have to evacuate her cabin eventually, unless…

“Come on up, and tell Joker to get us back to the Citadel please,” she answered. It was up to Garrus to come up whenever he saw the message. Until then Shepard flopped on the bed and rolled to her back to stare out the window above. 

She must have fallen asleep because when the door to her cabin opened she jumped up, still in a bit of a daze until she saw Garrus. 

“Hey,” she said, settling back down on the foot of the bed. “I’m sorry about--”

“Don’t worry about it,” he interrupted, crossing the room. “I’m the one who brought it up.”

“I don’t mean the Akuze outburst. Not just that, I mean. I was being a stubborn ass down there and neither of you needed to see that. Is Tali alright?”

“Yeah, she’s fine. She understands. We’ve seen you at your worse, Shepard, it isn’t anything that we aren’t used to. You reserve the right to be an ass sometimes.”

“I’ve been an ass for quite a while, if Chakwas is right about my scarring.” Shepard reached up to trace the scars crossing over her right cheek. They felt warm to the touch and extremely unnatural, not like the real scars she had. “Have they gotten worse since I found out? I haven’t payed much attention.

“A little brighter, maybe,” he answered, sitting down next to her. “Do they hurt?”

“They burn a little when I’m under a lot of stress or really angry. I didn’t notice while we were on Alchera but I could feel it when we got back. I can’t really call it pain, but I can feel that they’re there.”

“Didn’t you say that Chakwas could fix the scarring?”

“Yeah, but… I like them, as crazy as it sounds. When Cerberus put me back together they took away every scar I had. Even the ones from Akuze. After everything that I’ve accomplished I don’t think it’s right to have nothing to show for it.” She stopped touching them - real or not they still hurt - and instead moved her hand to brush careful fingers against the scarred side of Garrus’s face. “Besides, I can’t have you taking up all the attention for your scars.”

“Shepard, you know damn well you get more attention than me with or without having your face half blown off.”

“I get the attention because I died. You only get attention from Joker because he thinks you’re pretty.”

“Does he now?”

“Oh, yeah,” Shepard teased. “Why do you think he always talks shit about you? He’s in love, Garrus, if he could fight back I might have to confront him about it.”

“Is that why you called me ugly?”

“Look who’s catching on!”

“Love you too, Shepard.”

“I need a drink, we have anything stored up here still?” Shepard asked as she stood, making her way around the room to check out their usual spots for storing anything they hoarded from the crew deck. It became a habit for them to buy drinks for themselves, slightly higher quality of course, to hide in Shepard’s cabin because the lounge seemed to only remain stocked for a few weeks at a time. 

“No, you drank all of yours and got into mine a few nights ago. You’re lucky it didn’t kill you.”

“If I can handle ryncol, I can handle your dextro shit,” Shepard said as she checked under her desk, still hopeful that there was a forgotten bottle laying around somewhere. “Dextro alcohol is terrible, by the way. There’s no taste to it. I like to enjoy myself before I get knocked out.”

“I’m serious, how did you not die?”

“I’m not one of those who have a severe allergy. Well, I could have built up some kind of immunity too because there were a few times where I accidentally got my hands on dextro alcohol. Back then I’d be sick all weekend. Mordin seemed pretty concerned when he found out you and I were together, but when I stopped breaking out whenever you licked me he got over it. It’s a lot of dumb biology shit, Garrus, I’m not really in the mood to remember specifics.”

“Isn’t that part of Alliance military training? Basic alien biology?”

“Yeah, well, I don’t think the Alliance counted on us fucking the aliens.”

“Point taken.”

“Damn it, you’re right. Nothing here,” Shepard nearly pouted. “You told Joker to get us to the Citadel?”

“I did.”

“Good,” she said, throwing herself back on to the bed and pulling Garrus down with her. “Get down here and take a nap with me, we probably have a few hours.” She gave him a minute to situate himself, it always took so long for him to remember the most comfortable sleeping positions, before easily curling up next to him.

“How are you comfortable?”

“Humans are flexible,” she answered into his neck, making sure he felt her smirk. “You wouldn’t believe some of the places I’ve crammed myself into over the years. I could stay here all day. How are you so warm?”

“I don’t know, considering we were just on a giant ball of ice a few hours ago.” 

“How long have we been awake, anyway?” 

“You probably don’t want that answer.”

“Yeah I don’t,” Shepard yawned and snuggled her face into his shoulder. “I need to sleep for a week and forget about all this.”

“I’ll be here.”


End file.
